Shopping Cart that handles Phone Card PINs

Hi Tweaky, this would require a full specification of whats required.

What language would be it required to be wrote in?

Cheers

Phil

I doubt there is any off-the-shelf software that would fulfill your need. It would be fairly easy database/web project... Drop me a line if you want to discuss...

CRagsdell@kc.rr.com

any language, but ASP, I don't want to maintain ASP. PHP & MySQL sounds perfect to me.

tweaky,

Too bad you can't use ASP, as I have an ASP/MS SQL system in use that currently processes over $500,000 a month in travel insurance premiums that could easily be modified to meet your needs. We take the user's application, process the credit card and then spit out a confirming email... just like what you are looking for.

CR

Let say, I go trough the whole mess of switching hosts, what does your system offer, and what would you charge for it.

there is no package for what you're looking for, to my knowledge.  my company may be able to help you out, though.  based on what you've said so far, i think my company could do it for around $1000 in coldfusion (of course you would need to provide the data in electronic format, and be responsible for adding new data).  we could host your whole site for 60/month, but rather than do that, we could just host the software you need to develop for free (unless the demand/bandwidth got out of hand).  we would integrate the sites so they'd look the same, but when someone came to purchase, they'd come to our server and be returned to yours when done.

Obviously that is only an estimate, once we got more details we might go lower or higher, depending on exactly what you need.  Also, that estimate is assuming that you already have your merchant account and gateway figured out.

tweaky,

I'll reply via email.

CR

Guys, I am still open to any other suggestions....

http://www.9278.com/

sells phone cards online.  perhaps you could contact them about thier software.  i'm not sure it does what you want, i didn't purchase from them

https://www.prepaidonline.com/index.cfm?affiliate_id=1839&qaz=2390 

also has a system.

http://www.leancard.com/ 

and http://www.tel3prepaid.com/ 

are two others.

you could contact them and see what they use.

here is a page that has a whole bunch of shopping carts.  some are php and mysql.  You could probably customize them to pull the data you want to send out of the database and put it in the email receipt.

http://www.hotscripts.com/C_and_C++/Scripts_and_Programs/E-Commerce/Shopping_Carts/

Thanks for the link ... I know about many shopping cart with varing prices, however I was wondering if someone has done this allready and is willing to share his experience with me.

osCommerce is a free shopping cart, nevetheless it does not offer a phone cards module, nor the possibility to sell PINs. I was wondering if somebody knows how to hack it so it offers the functionality I need.

if you need more info ... do no hesitate to contact me.

Georgi Hristov

tweaky-  anything is possible to hack.  The question is "do you want to?"  You might want to think about the repercussions that whoever made it might have on you.  Since you said "hack," I assume the source files are compiled or encrypted in some manner.

Hacking it, or really cracking it(in this case), is against the law, and you may not want to do it for business reasons.  While I enjoy doing things like that in my spare time, just to do it, it's not something I would ever do if I was going to actually use the software.  I have two reasons for this:

1) its against the law and if I did it and the owner of the software found out, they could have my business through court.  

2) its cutting my own throat.  I program, and I don't mind helping other people program.  But if I come out with a product and people steal it from me, then how do I live?  I treat other businesses then, with the same respect as I would want.

If you want a cart with open source, then there are plenty out there.  There are some located on the URL that i gave you.  You can modify the open source code.  But if you already have one, and you need to do so much as decrypt a file, then you stand against "the law."  Find an open source one and get someone to modify it.  That's legal.  But having to "hack" it, I don't think you want to do.

Also, I'd like to point out that from my knowledge, you won't find what you want to for free.  For example, at my work, they would charge you (like I said above) probably about $1000.  Of course I can't be sure on that, it might be alot less, or alot more, depending on your exact specs.  If I did the project, that would be at least 250 dollars to me- and I've already written a shopping cart to start from.  Hence, I don't think you'll find someone on here to give you the full source code to what you need- rather, you'll find a lot of people willing to help you on specific questions regarding the source code.  

That's why I gave you the sites of people who use something similar to what you need.  perhaps you can buy it from them for less than that.  perhaps you can ask them what it would cost...

Substand,

You hava e great point ... :c)
However, you have misunderstood my request. Nowdays the word "hack" means a lot of things, including the description you provided above. What you are talking about is called hacking, however, I would like to refer to it as "cracking". What I ment by a hack is custom code for  the FREE & OPEN SOURCE shopping cart osCommerce.  osCommerce is PHP shopping cart under the GPL licence, I believe. So modification and redistribution of the souce is legaly alowed.  And since it is free the developers do not fullfil all request for new features, unless the majority of user need it.

So back to my request. I was looking for someone out there to write me a module, or edit the code of the cart so I can use it to sell phone cards.  I think this is totally legal and I shall not have to go in court for that. :c)

...

www.oscommerce.com is the website.
and if you would like to download the source code ... here it is ..
http://www.oscommerce.com/downloads/milestones

you are right. i'll take a look at it, but i don't think it will be quick/easy.  What I also said, was that the coding part (if i did it at my company) would be worth probably about 250 to me- and i already have a cart that i can customize.

I will look at it tommorow (i'm about to go out tonight) and if i can do it quickly (within an hour) i'll do it and get back to you.  I don't think I can, but I'll look at it and try.  In case I can't, you may want to look for a company who can (like my own) or make a posting on www.rentacoder.com.

of course it will cost you there, you'll have to place a bid.  I consider myself to do good work and work for less than the competition, but if you really want to find out, I would go there.

Like I said though, I'll look tommorow.

I really don't care which cart/script I use, as long as it can do what I need ...

On the other side I have very limeted budget .... that's why posted here .... cheaper than www.rentacoder.com 

contact me off-forum at hristov[at]iocc[dot]com so we can discuss it.

Georgi Hristov

That's exactly what we're doing here at the company I'm working at ;) - However we're doing that in a german environment, but we allow to switch to english language...

https://secure.verivox.de/cards/index.asp?Lang=eng

That's the B2C page. A german only B2B-branch is also available at https://secure.verivox.de/xxl/

However it's developed in ASP

Problem is that I'm only the developer, but if you want to I can help you to get access to our company leaders ;)

(Note: We already work on that shop since 3 years - It's grown-up and well tested but for sure not "freeware")

Would it fit in couple hundred US dollars budget. I know that is not much at all ... but I am just trying to make my way up ... I am real novice and just fought that would be good business. I just can't get the software to drive it ... at least not within my budget .. ;(((

I'm sure it depends on how much customisation you'll need. And I'm quite sure that we'll not give out our software, but we would host the solution.

Some of our other partners (like dutch company http://www.telecomadvies.nl/) pay couple thousand US dollars setup fee, but they required an awfull lot of customisation work.

Everything else depends on your negotiation skills ;)  (And don't try them on me, it's not my decision.)

I'll contact you via email.

HOw does the PIN get generated?  Sorry if I missed that.  the shopping cart that we offer sends out an e-mail to the consumer once a purchase is made.  A few tweaks it could send out its pwn 4 digit PIN very easily.  But also it is developed in ASP just to let you know so that it works with our payment gateway.

Corey

Pins are predermined. PINs are usualy 10-12 digits long.

Well that still should be easily accomplsihed - whether the are pre-determined by you or by the database.  

Corey

Also if interested in knowing more - please e-mail me @ crb@coreybryant.org - we would be more than happy to assist you in your endeavor or give you more advice.

Corey

Unfortunately ColdFusion extensions are not available at this time. :(((

coreybryant: I was wondering if it is possible to port the ASP cart to PHP & MySQL.

I don't have an windows hosting, and I would rather maintain PHP code ....

With the speed that we set everything up, I could ask my programmer.  We already have everything accomplished (with the exception of the PINs that you give us) on ASP / .NET so the time frame you are looking at to get it accomplished & price would be very fast & cheap.  To transfer it to another language would take a lot more time & money unfortunately. I could ask him if he could if you would like.

Corey

Let me check with my partner.  I just don't want to be dependable on somebody for the least little bitty problem.  With PHP & MySQL I can do the maintance.  ASP is a whole new universe to me, so I am not trying to rush into it yet.

Nevertheless, give me a week or so to think about this, to discuss it with my partner, and will come back here.  

PS:  In the mean time, if anybody else has an PHP mySQL solution that would easily addapt to the problem discussed above, please do not hesitate to contact me. Just post here and I will get the message. :)))

[Cheers]

I would like to apoligize to every one for not finilizing this question. This is more of a discussion, then a question; however, I will accept substand as winner since he was most active. I wish more people got into this discussion, but ....

Cheers and see you around

OK I did not see any one come up with a good solution.  Paypal ipn is one solution and a shopping cart with paypal ipn intended to sell cards cost $49.95 so far that I came accross.  I want to do the same, can any one tell me what other option do I have? This cart does not accept 2checkout or other payment that i am looking.

Thanks

Bengalliboy - you would be good to develop your own cart - probably would be about $600 in USD to do it

-Corey

Bengalliboy - what is the shopping cart that you have in mind.
Coreybryant - it is sometimes easier, cheaper and more secure to use an already developed shopping cart.

Possible - but the cart is yours.  And then you can even license it out.  As far as secure - as long as you have a programmer who knows what he is going - no problems.

-Corey

Programmers are expensive now days. And I am not trying to go in business of software development; there is plenty of shopping carts out there, some of them better than others. I just want something that would do what I want, and that I don't have big upfront cost.

Well, I might have to add that in our shop (www.charge-it.de - We do telephone PIN selling) we have more than 5000 lines of code just to stop fraudsters from taking our goods.

PIN selling is a bit different from many other shopping cart systems, because you don't need a shipping address... Just keep my words in mind... And don't tell me that I didn't warn you :-P

Not really tweaky.  You can find great programmers to do a cart as you would like for about $500-600.  We just built on shopping cart similar to Dell - you build the computer to your specs & it was $600.  From what you desired - it would see that your specs are a lot less then that.

-Corey

BlaM - thanks for getting involved in our discussion here. Just from curiousity, did you have a custom shopping cart developed, or did you have a existing shopping cart customized.  Can you help me out here ... it apears that you have more experience in this business than me. My email address is hristov [AT] iocc [DOT] com .

coreybryant -- and once I have it up and running who is going to support it ... Everytime I need something changed I will have to contact that programmer and have him do the changes I need. What happens if he is busy with some other project, or if he does not feel like messing with it any more.

We developed our own system. Probably we have a lot of features you don't want/need, like a simple "buy one card at a time" system for B2C customers, a system more like a shopping cart for B2B customers, including rebates, different pricing schemes, invoicing and stuff, a "terminal" channel which directly sells to ATMs and such, ...

As mentioned above, we (that's 3 developers working full time) are working on that system since more than 3 years so far, and still no end in sight (but that's mainly because we always find new features we want to add)...

Well depends on what you need changed.  Everything should already be there for you.  If your scope of work is complete & you know what you need - you have nothing to worry about.

-Corey

BTW: We already were in email contact quite some time ago now *ggg*

BlaM - Unfortunatly I don't have as good of a memory as yours. I totaly forgot about that.

No problem ;)

I think I gave you some phone numbers to contact our company leaders... Try mailing me at dominik.deobald AT verivox DET de

I'll answer tomorrow, though, because I'll leave the office now and go home ;)

BlaM - I believe I contacted him back then, but I don't remmeber exactly what it was. Maybe it was high up front cost, maybe it was hosted solution. I don't remember now.  As I told you "Unfortunatly I don't have as good of a memory as yours."